CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Carl Nesjar

I recognize these challenges which occur to me are challenges to myself and not
necessarily shared by others in any community of folks whatever…not even, I
suspect, by the two principals involved in this present essay, Carl Nesjar, a
contemporary Norwegian sculptor and painter andthe Italian Lorenzo Bernini, 17th.
century sculptor and painter.

I shall, to begin with, show some examples of their works to acquaint the reader
with the particular forms with which we shall be dealing.

One of Nesjar’s sculptural adaptations from a Picasso drawing

Lorenzo Bernini: The Blessed Ludivica Albertoni…with angels

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYsx5Di3bso

tp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y “about silence” John Cage

Nesjar: Globe Butl er

University
Blue svaberg Summer Picture

I feel myself somewhat ambivalent as to where to begin, but I shall give it a try at
the descriptive and the anecdotal.
One definition of the “anecdotal” is the following: based on casual observations or indications
rather than rigorous or scientific analysis …an anecdotal biography…observations of usually
unscientific observers
Well, let’s try “metaphoric”, something used, or regarded as being used, to
represent something else, an emblem or symbol. from Greek, transference, metaphor,
from metapherein, to transfer : meta-, meta- + pherein, to carry. Here we get an interesting
thought presented to us and if we use both these sources we might justify the conclusion
that works, such as those above, may be described as metaphoric anecdotes, or anecdotal
metaphors which describe existences which are not the existences they resemble but that
their similarities are useful, in part, because they provide a tripodium security and balance,
referencing, as this language does, our varied real-life experiences.

We can, therefore, say that while marble is not cloth, flesh or vapor it has been made, that
is, its resemblances drawn from our experience have been “transferred” from that
experience into the marble and one can, anecdotally say, with reliance, that the marble
“looks like” cloud. cloth, or flesh.

However, in all this rather circuitous intellectualizing there is hidden away the idea that what
we are actually looking at is not “real”, although, in terms of most art historical texts
Bernini’s work is referenced to be on several levels “realistic”…although almost all would
agree that his work is much more than that.

Now, if we shift our focus from Bernini to Nesjar our needs to use language anecdotally is
not less. It may even be increased as I, at least, find myself in need to reference my own
experiences as an artist. Now, on the assumption that Nesjar did not create these works for
an audience exclusively comprised of artists with similar experiences, but that he had a
general audience in mind….however, that is an assumption we do not know that he did. It
probably would be safe to say that all observers of his ice fountains, paintings and
photographs come away with the general impression of a visual immediacy. That
impression, I think, would be impossible with Bernini. As a result, one might add to the
Nesjar experience something like the absence of Nesjar in these works. Nesjar has
photographed the decay of matter as it has occurred. The photograph is an unedited record
of that decay. The paintings, of necessity have involved a slightly greater degree of Nesjar’s
physical involvement, but the remarkable absence of manipulation of the medium almost
underscore what seems to be the artist’s withdrawal from imposing himself on the medium
or the process…something like, at times, the social propriety of silence. With the Ice
sculptures, however, we obviously have a much greater involvement of the craftsman in the
mere assembly of the metal works, but the drama of these works really begins to make its
appearance, and, therefore, the message, when the elements of rain, snow, and cold and
later thawing warmth begin to contribute their statements to these works. It might be said,
speaking metaphorically, that Nesjar humbled himself before divine creativity, or, that
Nesjararrogantly set the works up for God to finish.

If it were important to enunciate a metaphysical meaning to works of art it might be said

that Bernini shows us man’s sensual perceptions of human experience and Nesjar invites us
to stand in awe of divine creativity, or its destructiveness as the case may be.

The inherent metaphoric or anecdotal values of these works must lie, I think, with the
observer who must struggle with the process of perceptual conflict resolution. Of course,
some won’t be bothered one way of the other, but for those of us who are the process of
arriving at an acceptable gestalt can be most entertaining.

The foregoing discussion, however, has made no attempt to decide what the penultimate
values of these approaches might be…only to describe some aspect of them.